Kerala   

Facade for subversive activities?

Several human rights and non-governmental organisations, environmental groups and former Naxalites have been put under surveillance in connection with the crackdown on fundamentalist and radical outfits.

Senior police officials say organisations with extreme Left leanings and fundamentalist outfits have floated their own human rights organisations and environmental groups.

The modus operandi of these organisations is to foment trouble on an issue and secure support of the affected parties to broaden their network at the grassroots level. Some of these organisations are deftly employing migrant labour to carry out their operations. The presence of migrant labourers from Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and Bihar has given a favourable climate for them to expand their base in the State, officials say.

The groups under surveillance subscribe to Naxalite and Maoist ideals or are Muslim and Hindu extremist organisations. The special purpose cell attached to the intelligence wing of the State police has compiled data of these organisations, profiles of their leaders and their activities in the State and outside.

The cell is a newly formed internal security apparatus of the State police. Members of this wing received a 10-day multi-pronged training at a newly opened training college in Thiruvananthapuram. Top officials from the Intelligence Bureau and the Research and Analysis Wing conducted the classes.

An official says that Maoists leaders have planned to regroup former Naxalite activists. Likewise, Islamists and Hindu fundamentalist outfits are attempting to raise issues to incite communal passions. All the groups have amassed huge funds either through domestic means or foreign resources.

The police suspect that some organisations had earlier conducted arms training in the forests of Attappadi, Nilambur and Wayanad in north Kerala and Idukki district. Many of them had recruited and indoctrinated youth, including college students.

State intelligence wing sources say the Internet has become a handy tool for most of these organisations. Many have created their own web sites, while others have put up blogs to propagate their ideals.

Many have created fictitious e-mail addresses. Users of the mail accounts have been given a common password. And these messages are saved in the drafts folder.

The State police have the laborious task of hacking these web sites as well as seeking Internet service providers’ help for disabling the blogs. The Internet has turned into an arena for Naxalite and intelligence agencies to fight proxy wars.

Organisations now are careful about the surveillance of the State police. The recently disabled peoples-march.blogspot.com, whose editor P. Govindankutty was arrested on charges of publishing seditious material, even warned those browsing revolutionary blogs not to respond to the comments on the articles using their personal e-mail accounts.

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